Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht User Review

Humanity only exists in depths of the universe, far away from their home world. With the aid of advanced technological developments, they live in ships and on the surfaces of other planets.

But they are not alone.

Gnosis, a malevolent alien race seeks the demise of humanity. Why? Where did they come from? Xenosaga follows Shion, an engineer for one the largest companies, Vector Industries, which provides everything from battery packs to military grade weapons. Shion develops the latter.

Shion becomes trapped in a terrifying reality filled with Gnosis, conspiracies, and the most terrifying piece yet, the past.

Xenosaga is filled with magnificent visuals, a stunning original score (one of my all-time-favourites), and a plethora of areas to explore. However, gamers may not reach this far as the cutscenes outweigh the actual gameplay. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The cutscenes are very well done with incredible precision. Most of the time, you may feel like you are playing a movie rather than a game.

The battle system is quite simplistic in its execution but is done nicely. A turn-based system which includes the ability to chain attacks among one, two, or more characters lets players unleashed devastating attacks. That said, enemies can do the same, so beware. At times the battles seem quite repetitive in terms of style and will be stale, especially if you need to level grind in one particular area. There are many types of enemies, though, throughout the game including major categories such as mechs, biotics, and Gnosis.

Enemies are all on-screen and can be avoided if necessary. If you are low on supplies and health, this will be a challenge but not impossible. The environment is used to deter enemies by stunning them or just plain dodging them. The same style is used for advancing in certain areas of the story. Puzzles galore! Pushing blocks, destroying blocks, flipping switches. There are a lot of blocks. However, each puzzle is unique (mostly) and requires a different thought process. I love puzzles! And if you do as well, you will like this aspect. If you prefer to just get where you need to go as soon as you can, then look elsewhere for your gaming needs.

There are many sidequests in the Xenosaga world which will keep you busy for hours and hours. I means like 100+ hours. To finish this game to completion, I saw over 250+ hours of gameplay. I have never experienced this level of sidequests before playing Xenosaga.

Play Xenosaga for the story and the puzzles, yet stay for the sidequests (and the story and the puzzles ^__^).